Shoot
:D

Embrace it.

its the nature of fear to resist embracing it.

I guess you can answer in many ways such as "face it" "look it in the eye" etc etc but they are kind of cliches that don't warrant much under philosophical analysis, since they boil down to "just overcome it" which is the original Q of the OT

Entirely free from fear? That's kinda dangerous, no?

By beeing so freaked out that you can't recognise it anymore. People would literally walk through fire or jump from the 100 th floor if there freaked out enough.

I've posted this before, here, to much scorn. It was the Nietzsche that rocked me to my deepest core, got me hooked. Ponder this to it's deepest depths and lift the greatest weight with your mind many times*. Like a bodybuilder's iron makes muscle, so too can the greatest weight the mind can lift(the mind can lift any weight potentially), build strength also.

"The greatest weight.— What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!"— Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!" If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you; the question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? —"

*Read it now and any time you are fearful, usually about what happens after death. If this does not work, think of the most horrible outcome of death for you and confront it.

Shoot
:D

Personally I don't want to. I also see this as part of the problem out there in the world, people denying their fears, people denying the validity of the fears of others, people trying to look like they are not afraid (hence, tough, macho, etc.)

Knowing yourself well, and understanding why you fear what you fear.

By dying.

Knowing yourself well, and understanding why you fear what you fear.
Generally fear is rooted in the very nature of one's concept of self

Do what you fear to do.

Do what you fear to do.

Perhaps that could be modified a bit to give a person a chance at survival and social contacts.

Knowing yourself well, and understanding why you fear what you fear.

To add to or perhaps modify:
You could feel your fear (and thus not be afraid to feel it), respect whatever it's message is and then move on.
Sometimes simply feeling the fear frees one from being restricted by it. Soemtimes there is a deep intuition about something that is happening or could happen that the little conscious mind cannot rationally predict or see on its own.
Sometimes the fear is based on events that happened in the past. Here feeling the fear (that you perhaps had to repress in the past) and having all parts of yourself notice that it is no longer that situation in the past can also alleviate restrictions.
To think of fear as bad is as strange as thinking that happiness is bad. context and events play a role here.

Generally fear is rooted in the very nature of one's concept of self

How so?

Grantywanty,
I agree with your idea, but not necessarily with the details, I think.
Read on.

To those who say that fear is a normal, healthy thing, I'm not so sure I agree.
The state or condition we generally refer to as "fear" is really a state of heightened sensual awareness.
Your heart pumps faster racing blood to your extremeties.
Your hair stands on end, making your skin more sensitive to touch.
Smells and sounds are more distinct.
Your vision is sharper and more vivid.
Your mind is moving faster.
Your reflexes are keener.
Adrenaline production ramps up.

When we sense danger, our bodies go into this heightened state of awareness, so we can better cope with the situation at hand - whether we choose fight or flight, we will perform better.

People have condition responses to this reaction. They understand, on some visceral, instinctive level, that this is a reaction to danger and the state of heightened awareness sets them into panic mode.
The fear comes from lack of self-confidence, past failures, insecurities, wariness of the unknown and other weaknesses that have been ingrained in the psyche over the years.
A heightened state of awareness is a normal, healthy thing.
Fear is a man-made weakness.

I agree with one raven, there is a difference between stress response and a phobia.

How so?

Grantywanty,
I agree with your idea, but not necessarily with the details, I think.
Read on.

To those who say that fear is a normal, healthy thing, I'm not so sure I agree.
The state or condition we generally refer to as "fear" is really a state of heightened sensual awareness.
Your heart pumps faster racing blood to your extremeties.
Your hair stands on end, making your skin more sensitive to touch.
Smells and sounds are more distinct.
Your vision is sharper and more vivid.
Your mind is moving faster.
Your reflexes are keener.
Adrenaline production ramps up.

When we sense danger, our bodies go into this heightened state of awareness, so we can better cope with the situation at hand - whether we choose fight or flight, we will perform better.

People have condition responses to this reaction. They understand, on some visceral, instinctive level, that this is a reaction to danger and the state of heightened awareness sets them into panic mode.
The fear comes from lack of self-confidence, past failures, insecurities, wariness of the unknown and other weaknesses that have been ingrained in the psyche over the years.
A heightened state of awareness is a normal, healthy thing.
Fear is a man-made weakness.

The problem I have with this is if I think of trauma victims who often have neither the time or freedom to use all that awareness and energy. The fact that they later have fears is not a sign of weakness, simply a natural aftereffect. We can't judge the 6 years old for not taking action against the sexually abusing step dad. Later in life he can work through the fears.

And then there is intuitive fear.
I am about to walk down a certain street and I feel afraid, or a heightened state of awareness if you like, but I have no problem with the other wording. Sometimes I've gone past that feeling and suffered the consequences. Sometimes it was a fear from the past and it was not an intuitive fear. But in both cases I lose nothing if I allow fear its place. If it turns out to be a past related fear - which I can often see after - I can work on getting to the root of it.
I see no advantage to looking at it as a weakness.
The guys, often it's guys, who do look at it this way and display strength and ignore their fears 1) mess up a lot of shit for everybody 2) are really weak.

The problem I have with this is if I think of trauma victims who often have neither the time or freedom to use all that awareness and energy. The fact that they later have fears is not a sign of weakness, simply a natural aftereffect. We can't judge the 6 years old for not taking action against the sexually abusing step dad. Later in life he can work through the fears.
Who said I was judging?
A weakness is not something to be judged, but if it is not recognized it is also not something which can be overcome.

Having an addiction, for example, is a weakness.
That doesn't mean that I judge people with addictions as "bad", "wrong" or anything else.
I don't even judge them as "weak", I simply say, honestly, that their addiction is a weakness, which it is.
If the addict doesn't recognize and come to term with his weakness, he will not ever overcome it.

And then there is intuitive fear.
I don't think there is such thing as intuitive fear.
Do you fear being mugged or raped on that street?
If you knew nothing about mugging or raping - if you were never exposed to such concepts, would you fear such things?
Of course not.
Fear is a conditioned response.
You associate the physical symptoms of the heightened state of awareness with things that have happened to you, thengs you have read about, things you have been told about, etc.
That association leads to a simple Pavlovian response to feel vulnerable to these percieved dangers - and if you did not know about them, you would not percieve them.

I see no advantage to looking at it as a weakness.
Then you will never overcome your fears.
You fear something because you percieve that this thing has power over you.
Something having power over you is a weakness, regardless of how non-PC and "macho" that may sound to you.
If you do not recognize that fact, then the fear itself has power over you, and that weakness will continue, and often times worsen.

The guys, often it's guys, who do look at it this way and display strength and ignore their fears 1) mess up a lot of shit for everybody 2) are really weak.
Bullshit.
I am not some "macho", agressive, thick necked, jock, ignoring his fears and pretending they don't exist by throwing testosterone at it.
I have simply been honest with myself and recognized that I had weaknesses.
I still have other weaknesses, and I am still working on myself, but I fear nothing.
It's not because I think I can overpower anyone, and I am tough and "no one can fuck with me" or any such thing you might imagine.
It is because I know myself and understood why I feared what I did.

The only "weak people" are the ones who do not recognize they have weaknesses.

Shoot
:D

understand the fear and dominate the source.

understand the fear and dominate the source.

Define what you mean by "dominate the source".

If you fear a wolf, and dominate, or even kill the wolf, you have overcome nothing.
There are a million more wolves, and you are still afraid of them.
The source of the fear is not the wolf, it is within you.

I guess as other people have mentioned - some forms of fear are good and aid survival etc.
The one fear that personally plauges me, and im sure everyone else whether they admit it or not. If the fear of what other people think of you.

It's a real bugger, i read Stephen Fry's autobiography once (oxford brain-box and comedian/actor for those who dont know) and he put it brilliantly...

'how do you turn off that process where youre walking down the street and youre constantly trying to guage how the other people around you are perceiving you?'
Its a tough one, we're almost programmed to play this game in our heads continually of trying to work out how other people are looking at us.
Its probably the reason behind booze being as popular as it is, when youre drunk those processes shut down, and you lose your inhabitions.
Although the flip side is this isnt always a good thing - look what happens when you cease to care what people think, our social conscience kind of breaks down and we're really reduced to a very primal animal level.

Anyway im rambling, like i said its a bugger.

How so?


generally the sense of self is conditioned (socially/physically/mentally/etc) - I say generally because there is the notion that the self can be extricated from material ignorance

Who said I was judging?
A weakness is not something to be judged, but if it is not recognized it is also not something which can be overcome.

'Weakness' for me implies negative qualities that seem added for no reason in the context I suggested. I can take the word more the way you want to use it, but the word is tinged with moral judgements in a lot of contexts. I would never say, for example, to a child survivor of abuse, that their PTSD symptoms are signs of weakness. I could talk to a disinterested person and work with the word as neutral, but it often seems out of place.

Having an addiction, for example, is a weakness.
That doesn't mean that I judge people with addictions as "bad", "wrong" or anything else.
I don't even judge them as "weak", I simply say, honestly, that their addiction is a weakness, which it is.
If the addict doesn't recognize and come to term with his weakness, he will not ever overcome it.
He could be shocked at what happens when he drinks and be so scared of the (repeated) consequences that he stops drinking. I have an alcoholic friend and his fear, in fact, ironically, was what stopped his drinking. I never heard him use the word 'weakness'. Perhaps he would have agreed to the label, perhaps not, but it was not a necessary abstraction on the way to abstension.

I don't think there is such thing as intuitive fear.
Do you fear being mugged or raped on that street?
If you knew nothing about mugging or raping - if you were never exposed to such concepts, would you fear such things?
I think we do have some innate fears: heights, fire. I can't remember, but I am pretty sure we are hardwired for some things.




Then you will never overcome your fears.
You fear something because you percieve that this thing has power over you.
Something having power over you is a weakness, regardless of how non-PC and "macho" that may sound to you.
If you do not recognize that fact, then the fear itself has power over you, and that weakness will continue, and often times worsen.

I don't experience it this way at all. Fear gives me information. Sometimes it is information that no longer applies, some conditioned response that is not appropriate and projected on the present. But other times I feel fear, trust it and find out I was right on the money. It would have been dangerous to get in that car. That man did wish me harm even though he was smiling. The wiring in that house was not professionally kept up.


Bullshit.
I am not some "macho", agressive, thick necked, jock, ignoring his fears and pretending they don't exist by throwing testosterone at it.
I have simply been honest with myself and recognized that I had weaknesses.
I still have other weaknesses, and I am still working on myself, but I fear nothing.
It's not because I think I can overpower anyone, and I am tough and "no one can fuck with me" or any such thing you might imagine.
It is because I know myself and understood why I feared what I did.

Sorry about how you got included in that. I had to run and that came out as a finger at you. I actually did not assume you were a member of that group. I do think there is a group that denies fear and their actions create a lot of problems in the world.

I am afraid (ha, ha) I do not believe your assertion that you fear nothing. If you came off as an affectless, mental drone, OK, maybe. But you don't. But come back after a month and if in all that time you haven't felt afraid of something, I promise to keep my mind more open.

I would never say, for example, to a child survivor of abuse, that their PTSD symptoms are signs of weakness.
Exactly.
Neither would I, nor am I.
The difference may seem subtle, but it is quite significant.

Saying that "their PTSD symptome are signs of weakness" is judging them as weak. You are saying that what has happened to them makes them a weak person.
Saying that "The atrocious thing that has happened to them has resulted in fearm wich is a weakness they can overcome" offers them strength. Once they overcome those fears the abuse they suffered has not made them weak, it has made them stronger.

I am afraid (ha, ha) I do not believe your assertion that you fear nothing. If you came off as an affectless, mental drone, OK, maybe. But you don't. But come back after a month and if in all that time you haven't felt afraid of something, I promise to keep my mind more open.

It's a deal!
We will continue this discussion in a month.
I haven't experiences fear in years, so another month will not change a thing.
If you remember about this in a month, send me a Private Message, I'm afraid I will forget. :)

Define what you mean by "dominate the source".

Take your wolf example. Learn the behaviors of a wolf. Understand what they fear. Make them fear you. Get used to killing them and the easiest methods of doing so. Take a bunch of baby wolves and make them your allies. You will dominate the world of the wolf with an iron fist!

uncondition yourself (free yourself from the insecurities causing you fear)

Take your wolf example. Learn the behaviors of a wolf. Understand what they fear. Make them fear you. Get used to killing them and the easiest methods of doing so. Take a bunch of baby wolves and make them your allies. You will dominate the world of the wolf with an iron fist!

Overcome fear by causing it in others? :bugeye:

You haven't overcome your fears, you have simply masked them by dominating the object of your fear.

Let's say you fear your neighbor, and buy a gun to protect yourself from him.
You get very good at handling the gun.
Now, if he tries to harm you, you can defend yourself and feel confiedent in your abilities to do so.
Do you think you would have overcome your fear?

I woudl contend that you still fear your neighbor, you are simply compensating for that fear.

Overcome fear by causing it in others? :bugeye:

You haven't overcome your fears, you have simply masked them by dominating the object of your fear.

It's very hard to dominate a fear and yet still be afraid of it.


Let's say you fear your neighbor, and buy a gun to protect yourself from him.
You get very good at handling the gun.
Now, if he tries to harm you, you can defend yourself and feel confiedent in your abilities to do so.
Do you think you would have overcome your fear?

If I killed him, put the fear of 'God' in him, learned to control him, etc. then I would have no fear of him.


I woudl contend that you still fear your neighbor, you are simply compensating for that fear.

In your specific example I might unless I applied the various solutions I proposed.

And you still are not free from fear, unless you apply that same "technique" to every one and every thing and conquer the world.

That's assuming a person has many many many fears and of course that they desire to become free of fear ala domination.

It's a deal!
We will continue this discussion in a month.
I haven't experiences fear in years, so another month will not change a thing.
If you remember about this in a month, send me a Private Message, I'm afraid I will forget. :)

Okey, dokey.

Still. Fear as positive.
My friend was terrified of the consequences of continuing his alcoholic ways. This fear motivated him to confront his problem and made it harder for the seductive voice telling him one drink was ok, this or that evening, to set him off on a binge.

Another friend was introduced by friends to one of their work collegues. After the dinner with the four of them, after which they had all planned to go to the movies, my friend, who had been feeling afraid during the whole dinner, backed out of the movie and the offer of a lift home by the man.
He was later charged with and convicted of rape. (might not have raped her, of course, but her fear seemed part of an effective communication from her intuition. And she is not usually afraid of men or their company.)

I realize that these cases will in no way prove anything to you in and of themelves. I want you to understand why I find it very hard to view fear as a weakness since I have regularly experienced it - in myself and in other around me - as a positive thing.

A signal that one should stop doing something or move away from something. It seems basic. A nice portion of our evolutionary or heavenly inheritance - that was for paradigmn holders of various types though I suspect you believe mroe in the former.

anger also, for that matter has its place. Often when things have gotten so close they cannot be avoided anymore.

of course both emotions can be part of problematic patterns and a weakness.
But not inherently.

I also see so many negative cases where people do not listen to fear, their own or others, and, even if it takes decades, we later realize how unthorough these people were being. I'd point to a rather glaring current event, but then if we fell on opposite sides of viewing that, well, the gap would be even greater.

Talk to you in a month. I'll keep track of my own daily life and come with examples of where it seemed fear helped me. In your view I suppose I would be very weak - in mine, very intuitive - so I should have some examples.

By the way. having manson represent you here does tinge the way I experience your posts. You probably find it funny and so do I, but on another level, I do read you perhaps slightly differently than you intend because of his ragefilled emotionally damaged face.

How do you become free from fear?
Acceptance.